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Carroll Griffes
Appearance Carroll stands at an average height, only reaching about five feet and eight inches. He is fit, however, with a slender and lithely muscled build. Handsome, with bright blue eyes and sandy blonde hair, Carroll's fair and regular features are dusted with a liberal scattering of freckles. He is very rarely (read: never) not covered with a healthy amount of facial scruff. Personality Carroll is all smiles, all the time. He has a kind word for everyone he meets, and a pleasant, winning manner that others find quite charming. He provides a much-needed sense levity to the ranks of the often dour Wardens. Those who look closer may recognize the telltale signs of the Bard's mask; He rarely reveals anything particularly meaningful about himself, he is evasive to a fault, and his broad grin often seems much wider than it really should be. Whatever Carroll truly does feel lies beneath the surface, and he isn't telling. Biography Carroll was born to peasants in the impoverished town of Val Firmin, the latest child in a line of what his parents would already consider much too many. The town midwife, who would later be chased away under suspicion of being a maleficar, would say that Carroll was born under a fated star, that destiny had something greater in store for him. But this only fell on his parents' deaf ears; how could Carroll be anything but another mouth to feed, and for what reason should they put stock in the ramblings of the village madwoman? The boy soon grew into a handsome child, freckle-faced and fair, though it was often difficult to tell underneath the perpetual layer of mud caked to his clothes. By chance, Carroll caught the eye of a stranger who happened to be passing through the town. The stranger spoke with him, then his parents. An arrangement was made. The stranger, whose name was Poulenc, had offered to apprentice the boy as a Chevalier's squire in Val Royeaux; he would be paid well, and a majority of the boy's earnings would be sent back to his family. How could they refuse? Carroll left with Poulenc a few nights later. Of course, Poulenc was no Chevalier. A bard is not a bard at all if he cannot spin a tale. Carroll trained under Poulenc for the remainder of his adolescence. Poulenc was a master bard with a veritable stable of apprentices to pick from, but Carroll was his preferred charge - or at least, that was the way that he made Carroll feel about it. Carroll never attempted to return home - partly out of financial duty to his parents, and partly because he slowly began to adore the Game and its workings. By the time that Carroll reached his twenties he had already been playing the Game for years. Of course, there were many players much better than he. Some still were even better than Poulenc. Not too long ago, Carroll returned home from an outing to discover Poulenc and many of his apprentices slain; assassins had been sent to eliminate Poulenc's house of bards, and Carroll was barely able to escape with his own life. An intrigue had gone wrong, and the offended party had seen to take repayment from Poulenc in blood. What little information that Carroll could gather incriminated the involvment of a staggering total of three different noble houses, and worse yet, seemed to also imply the involvement of a rogue unit of Grey Wardens. Whatever the reason, Poulenc was dead, and it seemed likely that whomever had done the deed would be terribly upset that they had allowed Poulenc's prized apprentice to stray. When Carroll approached the Grey Wardens with his information, he had asked for protection. What he received instead was an offer. Timeline Relationships Category:Character Index Category:Original Characters Category:Orlesians Category:Grey Wardens